When entities deal with on-line users via the entities' websites, the respective entities usually prefer to provide their own user experience to guide a user through processes that may involve obtaining endorsement from one or more external enterprises. The entities as well as users that interact on-line with the respective entities usually prefer clear, secure methods for inputting information, especially personal information, to the respective entity's website. This is particularly true with entity websites in which the user may have had minimal previous interaction and therefore limited trust.
Some special services, such as credit checking, lending qualification or prequalification, identity confirmation, email services and the like, may be provided by an enterprise external to the entity through “widgets” that execute via the entity's website. A widget may be a separate computer application that provides a service obtained from a separate widget host enterprise, and that is called from an entity's website. A user selects a button on the website that launches the widget on the user's web browser.
However, with respect to each other, entities typically use different internal or external website developers to produce and update the respective entity's website and related programming code, such as the widgets. Because of using different developers, the generation of widgets by an external enterprise for each entity website is cumbersome and adds high maintenance costs. For a large entity having multiple different business units each with their own websites, the resulting websites and the generated widgets may lack consistency and uniformity across the multiple business units of the entity. Integration between the widget, the web sites, entity site backend, and the backend of the widget host must be simple or risk additional maintenance costs. The lack of consistency and uniformity may perhaps lead to frustration and user disappointment in the performance of the website and widgets.